Thinking Activity : Paradise Lost book IX

▪ Divine Perspective and Human Perspective :-

                Divine Perspective is one of the major argument in this era also. The major question is that Who Created man ? The answer is God. But if God created man then why people on the earth suffer alot of the many problems. The concept of these all arguments given in the book, The Bible . In Old Testament there is discussion about the creation of man. The belief is that God written this holy book but after passing the time there are many who retold the story and made some changes in the story. One is that John Milton the major writer of The Puritan age . He wrote the great book, Paradise Lost. In this book he rerold the story of Eve and Adam but with some changes. In the original Bible we are find out God Perspective but in Milton's s Paradise Lost, we are find out human perspective. Now let us discuss God Perspective in The Bible and Human perspective in the Paradise Lost.

▪ Divine Perspective in the Bible: The story of Genesis :-

The story of Genesis is the first book of the holy Bible. In this book there are two parts. In the first part there is discussion about concept of the nature of the deity and of humankind's relationship with it's maker and in the second part there is discussion about the creation of first man , Adam and Eve. Here I would like to share short animation video of the story of Genesis in the Bible. 

                       
After the creation of Birds, Animals, Trees, Plants, the Sun, the Moon, the day, the night, God says,

                  " Let us make man. "

the Hebrew word used is, " Adam." The Garden of Eden, a discourse on ideals in life, the danger in human glory and the fundamentally ambiguous nature of humanity, especially human mental faculties. The Garden in which the action takes place lies on the mythological border between the human and the divine world. 

Now let us see the Human perspective in Milton's Paradise lost. 

▪ The Human Perspective in Milton's Paradise Lost  :-

                         Milton told the story of  Paradise Lost in his point of view. He put the character of Eve as a Intellectual character. He argued against God and raises the question. But the question is that why Milton put the Intellectual character is Eve only ? Why Adam not ? The answer is that Milton wants to draw the woman character. According to him woman is responsible for the fall of man. First she ate the fruit of knowledge and then she tried to convince Adam for eat the fruit. And she became successful also. 

                    The character  Adam , Milton put as a good character. He obeyed all the rules of God and said that, 

" Solitude sometimes is best society and short retirement urges sweet return. "
                                                           - Book IX, line 249-50

First he refused to eat fruit, given by Eve and he speaks the side of God. After eating the fruit of knowledge they both blamed one another and started fighting each other. 

                 The character of Satan is Power, hungry overlord character. Satan reveals a sense of human behaviour in the sense that he started a fight then afterwards God gave him a bloody nose and now Satan wants is revenge. According to him, 

" It is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. "

▪ Eve as transgresser and yet defendable  :-

Eve is a beautiful, Wise and able character. Eve is perfectly capable of comprehending the abstruse subject, but she prefers hearing the idea from Adam alone. She raises questions to Adam but she does so in rational,respectful manner. Such questioning leads to her temptation like,

" Let us not then suspect our happy state, 

Left so imperfect by the maker wise,

As not secure to single or combined, 

Frail is our happiness, if this be so. "

In the beginning of the book IX Eve says to Adam that they can do more work if they work separately. Eve wins the argument by knowing using her advantages over Adam. Eve yields to temptation through a combination of flattery and sophisticated argument by the serpent. Satan knows Eve's weakness and plays on her. She is charged by him and cannot detect the flaws in his arguments. 

   

                 After eats the fruit, Eve suddenly changes. She begins to think the way of becoming Adam's equal and perhaps his superior. But fearful of losing Adam she decides that he must eat the fruit also. Adam does so but not because of Eve's arguments but he eats wilfully because he is unwilling to be parted from Eve. After the fall she apologizes and her love causes a change in Adam. Eve is not a feminist heroine like so many characters in epic, but she has an assigned role in the heirarchy of the universe. 

- Thank you....